Death on the North Rim

The history of the western United States is a saga of territory added in haphazard pieces, as those in power grabbed what they could. Sometimes this happened as a good financial bargain, like Thomas Jefferson's 1803 Louisiana Purchase. Sometimes it was the result of diplomacy, such as our northwest corner given by treaty with Britain in 1846. From the Texas Territory to the unimagined vastness of Alaska, the United States took what it could get, in many cases without knowing anything about ...